spitfire7 wrote:
Can't we all just be friendly about it?

You goddamn idealists!!!

hackenslash wrote:

advaitya wrote:an ontological question about existence

Can you say tautological tautology?

Thanks for making my point about fucking navel-gazers and physics.

As for my civility, bollocks. If you can find a clause in the forum users' agreement that requires me to treat your intellectual turds with respect, report me. Otherwise, go and tell somebody who gives a fuck.

Clearly, you give plenty of 'fucks', your assertions to contrary notwithstanding. Pause, breathe slowly and realize how pathetically agitated you've gotten over a disagreement.

No you've NOT addressed a single point raised by me. Very evidently, you singularly FAIL to appreciate ontological questions, contradict yourself and repeatedly make points that has already been made by me. All this whilst getting further worked up.

You don't have much of an understanding of physics either. Theoretical physicists, who do it for a living, admit and entertain the idea of time being a fuzzy and nebulous concept, one which is FAR from settled. They'll also admit freely that this isn't a purely physics question. My advice is, instead of frothing rabidly, go to arxiv and read a few peer reviewed articles and familiarize yourself with the issue and why it remains an unsettled question. A look at Godel's rotating universe theory which postulated non existence of time should add a little depth to your abundantly shallow knowledge.

Yes, I'll keep making the same point over and over regardless of how antsy you get. You just have to deal with it. Hopefully, you'll act your age and not like a petulant teenager and not give me another opportunity to report you.

spitfire7 wrote:Hmm. I don't want to get in the crossfire here over this. But I had thought that this issue of what was meant by the OP had been addressed already? Although my memory isn't the greatest...

It seems to me that in any normal situation, such as at the beginning of the thread for example, a question asking for clarification would be totally acceptable. But if that issue has already been addressed in the thread then it could be taken as an annoying question, possibly done on purpose even. That might explain hackenslash's hostile response.

Possibly, although it's a few pages long now and a lot of people just don't have time to read all posts. I don't see the problem in threads repeating certain things. How else would threads get to be over 100 pages long?

In my opinion the hostile response is way over the top. advaitya hardly seems a navelgazer, and (s)he has made valid points.

spitfire7 wrote:Can't we all just be friendly about it?

Of course not!

advaitya wrote:

twistor59 wrote:If you want some entertainment on the nature of time, have a rummage through these essays

variable quality, but some good ones, like Fotini Markopolou's for example

I had a look at Markopolou's paper. She says space doesn't exist! These navel gazers making a living doing theoretical physics!

I wouldn't call Markopoulou a navel gazer. She's a highly respected theoretical physicist. "space" is not necessarily a fundamental concept, but one which emerges from the formalism. This is true for both LQG and string theory (once you move beyond the elementary "strings vibrating in spacetime" description. Perhaps "doesn't exist" isn't a great title. "Isn't Fundamental" would be more appropriate.

twistor59 wrote:

advaitya wrote:

twistor59 wrote:If you want some entertainment on the nature of time, have a rummage through these essays

variable quality, but some good ones, like Fotini Markopolou's for example

I had a look at Markopolou's paper. She says space doesn't exist! These navel gazers making a living doing theoretical physics!

I wouldn't call Markopoulou a navel gazer. She's a highly respected theoretical physicist. "space" is not necessarily a fundamental concept, but one which emerges from the formalism. This is true for both LQG and string theory (once you move beyond the elementary "strings vibrating in spacetime" description. Perhaps "doesn't exist" isn't a great title. "Isn't Fundamental" would be more appropriate.

Hello twistor59. I didn't for moment think of Markopoulou as a navel-gazer, her credentials speak for her ability and intellect. I quoted your post and her paper sarcastically aimed at those who claim that questions about time and space are 'settled' and only being discussed by vacuous philosophers. My intent was to impress upon hackenslash that even acclaimed physicists are not in agreement over the nature of these entities. Given the state of our understanding, I didn't think hackenslash's certainty about time's existence is warranted. His scorn of those with a differing viewpoint even less so.

Hope I clarified myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hByJBdQXjXU

Dearie me.

Came across the above video on BigThink where an admittedly inarticulate physicist suggests abandoning gravity as a fundamental reality of nature. Per him, gravity is an emergent phenomena, an illusion. Without going into the rightness or otherwise of his hypothesis, such claims betray how despairingly incomplete our understanding is.

Reading a little more about this physicist, Erik Verlinde, on wiki, he apparently introduced the concept of 'entropic gravity'. To quote wiki, "in this theory gravity exists because of a difference in concentration of information in the empty space between two masses and its surroundings".

I love this shit. Nature of reality. Time, space, gravity. Great stuff. The physics is ridiculous. Could someone more knowledgable in the subject than I explain if physical reality is possible without the constructs of time or space?

I think the statement that neither time nor space exist is fundamentally correct. That's just my two cents.

amkerman wrote:
I love this shit Nature of reality. Time, space, gravity Great stuff. The physics is ridiculous Could someone more knowledgable in the subject than I explain if physical reality is possible without the constructs of time or space ?

I think the statement that neither time nor space exist is fundamentally correct That s just my two cents

Fascinating stuff indeed amkerman
It is just unbelievably awesome in scope
Here is what I know - I hope that it is of use

Time is one of the four dimensions or to be
more accurate one of the four known dimensions
There are seven others but they cannot be referenced as
they are impervious to light - and this is known as m theory

The Universe is composed of matter. Matter is composed of
energy. Energy has always existed [ First Law Of Thermodynamics ]
Ergo the Universe has always existed - the reason why physicists always
claim it began 13. 72 billion years ago with the Big Bang is because they do
not know what happened before that but it is stil an erroneous statement to make

If space did not exist then neither would matter. Because it is
three dimensional and physical and therefore needs area to exist in
In theory this may be possible but the laws of physics would not exist as
we know them or even exist in any form what so ever. Time would not either
because it would not have a single point by which it could accurately be referenced

hackenslash wrote:

wild_river wrote:
if that is the case, you are trying to make me believe that the past is existing at the very same time as the present ? We know that the past did exist but you cannot seriously believe the past exists now ?

Actually yes, the past does exist now. Allow me to explain :

Imagine you are sitting in a room with one other person The other person gets up and walks across the room When he does this time slows down for him relative to you, ergo, he is earlier in time than you. Therefore, he exists in your past right now

True but the actual time that elapses
in this scenario is so insignificant that the
point is almost irrelevant - but a much better
demonstration would be to use c as an example like
this : it takes eight minutes for the Sun s rays to reach
Earth because of the distance light has to travel here. Now
eight minutes may not sound like a lot but it is a time frame that
can be better referenced than the nanoseconds of your example above
Someone reading it with no understanding of physics might be a tad confused

I'm beginning to think time isn't even "real", but it rather just a construct thought up of by humanity to explain the passage of events.

Greatctulu wrote:I'm beginning to think time isn't even "real", but it rather just a construct thought up of by humanity to explain the passage of events.

But if there is a passage of events wouldn't that be time?

We know that everything doesn't happen at once. The Big Bang isn't happening right now. So what is causing things from happening at different instances? I'd say that's what we call time.

MacIver wrote:

Greatctulu wrote:I'm beginning to think time isn't even "real", but it rather just a construct thought up of by humanity to explain the passage of events.

But if there is a passage of events wouldn't that be time?

We know that everything doesn't happen at once. The Big Bang isn't happening right now. So what is causing things from happening at different instances? I'd say that's what we call time.

Maybe the Big Bang is happening right now in an alternate universe linked to ours But in all seriouness, I think that maybe time passes as it does because that is how our mind perceives the passage of event. Perhaps events pass differently for other sapient beings.

MacIver wrote:

So what is causing things from happening at different instances? I'd say that's what we call time.

Certainly not time. Time cannot 'cause' things.

A better way to put it would be to say things don't happen at once and that causes the illusion/feeling/impression of time.

advaitya wrote:

MacIver wrote:

So what is causing things from happening at different instances? I'd say that's what we call time.

Certainly not time. Time cannot 'cause' things.

I don't think I made myself clear. What I meant is not that time causes things to happen. But that time stops everything from happening at once.

A better way to put it would be to say things don't happen at once and that causes the illusion/feeling/impression of time.

I'd agree with this, yes.

Greatctulu wrote:

MacIver wrote:

Greatctulu wrote:I'm beginning to think time isn't even "real", but it rather just a construct thought up of by humanity to explain the passage of events.

But if there is a passage of events wouldn't that be time?

We know that everything doesn't happen at once. The Big Bang isn't happening right now. So what is causing things from happening at different instances? I'd say that's what we call time.

Maybe the Big Bang is happening right now in an alternate universe linked to ours But in all seriouness, I think that maybe time passes as it does because that is how our mind perceives the passage of event. Perhaps events pass differently for other sapient beings.

Our perception of time definitely plays a part, but only to a point I think. Einstein taught us that time was relative. So unless all sentient beings are travelling in the same direction and speed at us through the cosmos then they will be experiencing it at a different rate to us. But they won't be aware of this. And the "arrow of time" will certainly be travelling in the same direction for them as it is for us.

MacIver wrote:
But that time stops everything from happening at once.

It's surprisingly different to say what time "really" is isn't it ? That definition is probably as good as it gets !

The three definitions of time are :
A single moment within the Universe
The medium through which all life exists
A period elapsing between particular events